In The Darkness Between Twilight and Dawn
by sapphire-child
Summary: Set the night after the events in “Alibi’s and Stealing Time”. Claire reciprocates Charlie’s earlier favour.


**Title:** In The Darkness Between Twilight and Dawn (Let Me Love You)  
**Characters:** Claire, Charlie  
**Spoilers:** set just before Greatest Hits  
**Original Post Date:** 31/01/2008  
**Summary:** Set the night after the events in "Alibi's and Stealing Time". Claire reciprocates Charlie's earlier favour.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Never has been and never will be (sadly).  
**Author's Notes:** written for charlielives challenge #3: loved up  
**Dedication:** to my fellow writer pacejunkie who requested a sequel! I hope it's sufficiently sexy for you m'dear :P

* * *

He had already been alone for a long time before he met her. That doesn't mean that he hasn't had sex in all that time, but there is a rather large difference between a girlfriend and a fuck buddy. There's something incredibly lonely about sharing your bed with a succession of girls who don't give a fuck about you and are only there because you're famous or you're good in bed or because they're looking to get a free bump off you.

He remembers the numb loneliness all too well because the last time he actually had a half decent, healthy relationship with a girlfriend was (it's sad but true) when he was in his early twenties – before the band, before the touring, before the drugs. He left her behind to go on tour and when he came back again she had settled down with somebody else and gotten herself married and pregnant.

He remembers going out the night that he found out, obliterating himself on whiskey and sleeping with the first woman who eyed him up from across the room. She got offended the next morning when he refused to stay with her or give her a phone number to call him and he did feel like scum for a while but the memory of her upset face wouldn't stay with him for very long – just until the next bar, the next girl.

All the bad memories faded after a while. They blurred together, the edges of one girl bleeding into another and if they persisted, if they did stay with him, taunting him and haunting him, he would push them away and numb the self loathing he felt for himself with the drugs.

Then there came the island. Suddenly there were no more drugs, no more fame, no more bars full of easy women, and to his surprise, he found himself a girl who made him feel good without her even realising that she was doing it. The fact that he began to fall for her almost from the moment that he first met her just made her that little bit more dangerous.

She has the ability to hurt him so much more than anyone else ever has. The fact that he knows this and he's _still_ chasing after her is a little bit of a worry to him. She cares for him, he truly believes that. But does she love him the way he does her? Not a chance. When he leaves this life behind, whether it's tomorrow or next week or next year he knows that she'll grieve but all too soon she'll move on. She has the potential to fall in love again, to enjoy her life even after he's gone.

Or at least…he thinks she does. He's counting on being right about this. He doesn't think he could bear to know that his death might somehow damage her beyond repair. She's already been hurt before – she's told him that herself. So when she tried to touch him in the soft light of the afternoon he had refused her and he'd felt guilty from the first moment he saw the hurt in her eyes.

He hadn't rejected her by choice, but because it was what was best for her. It never seemed to take much coaxing to push her away when things get too crazy between them before – today had been the first time he'd actually worried that she might completely disregard his reasoning. There had been something fierce burning behind her eyes…

But now the darkness between twilight and dawn has fallen and he's sitting folding nappies, keeping one eye on the slumbering child at his side when she ducks into their shelter underneath the front flap which is lowered to keep out the night chill and the prying eyes of their camp mates.

"Hey," she whispers so as not to wake her son.

"Hey," he returns and then continues to fold methodically. "I think Aaron's out for the count and so am I just about. I'll just finish folding these and then…"

She silences him with a soft kiss and his hands stop folding and fall into his lap in surprise at the tenderness of the gesture.

When she pulls back and her lips pull at a smile he clears his throat awkwardly.

"Well," he says. "Well then. That was uh…"

She kisses him again then, harder, and the remaining pieces of cloth in his hands flutter to the sand as he puts his arms around her shoulders and holds her to him gently. Her hands are framing his face as she presses her tongue tentatively against his lips and despite himself, he feels nervous. Their shelter is quite open – anyone could come past and see them.

"Wait," he says, pulling back carefully. She chases his lips with her own but he touches her face and stills her. "What if someone sees?"

She laughs then. "What, are you getting all prudish on me now? Come off it, you used to be in a band."

"That's beside the point," he says shortly. "And I was asking because you're always so worried about other people seeing…"

"Sometimes the risk of getting caught…" she plants a breathless kiss on one corner of his mouth, then the other as she speaks. "Makes it more fun. Doesn't it?"

He pauses to let her nuzzle his neck and then he steels himself to ask the burning question.

"Who are you and what have you done with Claire?"

"Nothing!" she says defensively, pulling back to glare at him. "Why are you complaining?"

"I'm not _complaining_," he returns, just as defensively. "I'm just a little bit confused as to why you're so…demanding all of a sudden. Not that I mind," he adds hastily. "It's just a bit strange to have you so enthusiastic about all of this."

"Well I've been thinking about what we were doing this afternoon," she says and suddenly she's blushing furiously. "And I thought I'd like to return the favour."

He frowns, thinking about this for a moment and then his brain clunks audibly into place and a surprised "Oh!" escapes him. "Claire," he says reproachfully. "You don't have to feel…" she makes short work of his belt as he speaks and he temporarily loses the ability to speak. "Obligated to…"

"Just…don't talk okay?" she says. She looks nervous now too – he's probably rubbing off on her. "I need to concentrate."

He laughs then, still a jangle of nerves. "What's there to think about?" he sounds hysterical to his own ears – he can hardly imagine what she thinks he sounds like. "This is all instinct stuff."

"Maybe for some girls," she mutters and abruptly, she leans up to kiss him again. He lets her this time, hyperaware of the fact that the hand that isn't on his face is busily undoing his jeans.

"Nngh…" he moans when he feels her cool fingertips brush against his bare skin tentatively. "You do realise that you're killing me here?"

"Already?" she sounds honestly surprised and pulls back to look him in the eye. "I admit myself very surprised."

"Just knowing that its y-ou…" his voice hiccups as her hand trails down lower and he lets his head fall back and his eyes shut. "_Christ_…you wouldn't even need to try and this'd still be absolute murder."

"Because it's me?" she whispers and he can feel her breath against his skin. His eyes are still shut tight as her hand begins to move in long, leisurely strokes and he bites his lip to stop from crying out. But then her hand stills suddenly and he exhales, letting go the breath he hadn't even been aware that he was holding. "Because it's me?" she repeats.

"It's always because it's you," he breathes, finally allowing himself to relax and then he opens his eyes. She's looking up at him, honest surprise on her face.

She seems temporarily unable to speak or even move, but then her eyes darken and she leans forward and Charlie shuts his eyes again hurriedly as she takes him in her mouth.

He tries to be as quiet as he can, but not being in control of this – and knowing that she wants this so much – is driving him crazy. He grits his teeth, bites his lip, clenches his hands to help stop himself from crying out and giving them away but her mouth is warm and soft around him and she's moving her tongue in just the right ways to make him squirm. Occasionally he can feel her teeth grazing against his skin accidentally and he shudders pleasurably at the sensation.

Considering how worried she was about her talents in this area, Charlie is finding himself actually losing his breath.

"_Fuck_." he says with real feeling as she traces her tongue along the sensitive underside up to the tip and then groans out loud, forgetting himself when she takes him back in again. "Claire!"

She braces her hands on both of his knees and without even thinking, he reaches down to grasp a handful of her hair, his head falling back in an agony of ecstasy as she begins to speed her movements up.

_This is so unbearably fucking good…_

She chokes and splutters a little when he comes in her mouth and instead of screaming out her name for the whole world to hear he bites down on his fist hard enough to draw blood from the crescent moon of teeth indents he will leave there.

She swallows as she falls back onto her haunches, licking her lips distastefully as Charlie tries to slow his breathing down. As it is, he's gasping a little with each intake of breath and his limbs don't seem to be able to function properly anymore. After a moment, the hand that he's been biting slips from between his teeth and falls limply to his side.

His eyes are still half closed as she comes to sit beside him and takes his hand – kissing the bite mark he's left there tenderly. He turns to look at her then, licking his lips, swallowing as if he's going to say something. Instead, she kisses him, making sure that he looks her in the eye as she does so. He can taste the lingering remnants of himself on her lips and in her mouth and he wants nothing more than to roll her over onto her back on their bed and just…

But he can't.

"You told me not to be afraid to look you in the eyes," she murmurs suddenly, the first words she's spoken in what seems like forever. He flinches, startled but she doesn't seem to notice as she smiles coyly at him. "Looks like you need to learn how to take your own advice."

This doesn't mean anything, he tells himself frantically. Unspoken affections like this don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things – she just wanted to return the favour, that's all. She can live without you, one day she'll be able to move on when you're gone.

Won't she?

He smiles shakily. "I thought you said you weren't good at this sort of stuff?"

Claire ducks her head and giggles, embarrassed. "You're such a liar."

"I'd never lie about the way I feel about you," he says softly and she looks at him with the most unfathomable expression.

She opens her mouth and for a moment he is abjectly terrified that she's going to blurt out something rash and spur of the moment (and he just won't be able to live with himself if she says she loves him because he's guilted her into it) but then she merely smiles and curls up into his side, laying her head against his chest.

Charlie surreptitiously does up his fly as she snuggles into him and shuts her eyes. Before too long however she's curling up even further, her head falling into his lap, and her breathing becomes slower and slower until he knows that she's fallen asleep. He rests a gentle hand on her back, rubbing slow circles as he feels his own eyes begin to droop.

He can feel her spine through the thin fabric of her shirt, each individual vertebrae attached to a ribcage that protects her most vital organs. And through her ribs he can feel her heart beating, strumming out the chords of her life one bar at a time.

And in that moment he knows that her heart will go on beating long after his has been stilled forever. It doesn't make it any less lonely but at least he knows that one day after he's gone, she'll stop missing him and she'll be able to live again.

And he's glad for her.


End file.
